By Gina Trimarco, Chief Results Officer
We all know that finding the best talent takes effort, intention, time and money. It’s not an overnight process IF you want people who fit the culture. And sometimes it could take months, even years to find the right people for top leadership positions. Hiring the wrong leader can polarize and destroy a company’s culture.
So, if put in the position of hiring your next top leader and your only choices were Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who would you hire?
Stay with me here. This isn’t a political rant or personal opinion.
For a moment just consider their personas and their personal brands on the surface because surface (first impressions) matter when onboarding anyone new into your organization, especially a leader.
The personal brands of Trump and Clinton precede them. If we listen to the media (and facts, in some cases), Trump sexually assaults women and bankrupts businesses while Clinton lies and is corrupt.
Don’t get worked up based on your own political opinion because this is about popular opinion based on perceptions. As human beings, we often function on our gut and instincts about people. I personally would love to have a dog present for every candidate interview because animals know who the good people are.
Hiring leaders with personalities, ethics (or lack of) and reputations like Trump or Clinton could be detrimental to an organization’s culture. Getting everyone to buy in would be arduous and painful. Trust has to be earned and in a case like this, it may never happen.
Maybe your reaction is “We would never even consider candidates like them.” But what if that was your only choice? Clearly when it comes to our presidential election, those are OUR primary choices.
What happened then? How did our “recruiters” end up with only these two candidates? Who dropped the ball when it came to screening and vetting properly? Why didn’t we search harder for a potential leader that could be a change agent?
If your organization has ever made the wrong hire chances are that your company culture deteriorated right in front of your own eyes … if you didn’t have blinders on.
And there’s the problem. Blinders. Most of us are so focused on getting our own work done that we lose sight of a disenchanted culture.
Whether or not you have a horse in the race, take off your blinders and don’t let yourself get into a position of having limited hiring choices. Get involved. Be intentional. Invest the time and money. And don’t settle. You’ll spend years cleaning up what the wrong candidates did when you could have avoided it in the first place.
-Gina Trimarco
If you’re feeling stuck, it’s time to pivot!
P.S. Need help with creating a company culture that attracts the top talent? Let’s talk.
P.P.S. Want some inspiration from modern leaders who know how to shift their cultures to success? Listen to The Pivotal Leader podcast, now on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play Store.
ABOUT THE POST AUTHOR
Gina Trimarco, Chief Results Officer, knows how to
pivot to profits from problems and find joy through the process. Her philosophy is that performance pays and people need to be trained to perform on the stage of business to achieve results.
Gina successfully pivoted from her entertainment company Carolina Improv Company to spinning off Pivot10 Results, a strategic training and consulting firm that helps business teams to quickly adapt their communications and engagement skills in leadership, customer and sales to achieve results by providing them experiential learning tools and strategies.
